Economic and Social Change in 19th Century Spain: Labor Movement Origins
Economic Evolution and Social Change: The Start of the Labor Movement (1833-1875)
The evolution of the Spanish economy in the nineteenth century was the result of institutional changes introduced by the Liberal Revolution (1808-1843). These changes accounted for the disappearance of legal privileges and laws of the old regime that prevented economic development. The result was the formation of a capitalist economy and a society based on private property.
To achieve this, there was a package called Liberal and Agrarian Reform which consisted of:
1. Disentailment (nationalization of church lands and municipal properties): Laws of 1813, 1820, 1836-37, 1841, and 1855.
Objectives:
- To adapt property to the principles of liberalism: Free ownership.
- To remedy the deficit in funding for the Hacienda.
- To obtain funding for the Carlist Wars.
- To strengthen the social basis of liberalism.
Consequences:
- Transfer of collective properties to individual buyers.
- Increase in the number of agrarian property owners.
- The Hacienda deficit was reduced but not eliminated.
2. Disentailment (Removal of entail, but without land confiscation): Laws of 1820, 1836, and 1841.
Objectives: Free disposal of property by its owners, seized in case of debts.
3. Abolition of the seigneurial regime: Laws of 1811, 1820, and 1837.
Reasons:
- Contrary to the unity of the State.
- Since 1808, people had effectively stopped paying rent to lords.
Seigneurial Types:
- Jurisdictional: Abolished; people were responsible for demonstrating that the estate was only jurisdictional.
- Territorial: They became individual property.
4. Market Freedom:
- Freedom of Property: End of the Mesta and Guilds, freedom of contract and prices.
Consequences:
- Development towards capitalism and a market economy.
- Redistribution of wealth (less land for the Church, nobles, and municipalities).
- Abolition of the nobility.
- Consolidation of the bourgeoisie.
- Differences within the peasantry.
- Formation of a market economy.
Economic growth was also driven by other factors such as:
A) Development of railway transport, especially the 1855 General Railways Act. However, in 1866, an economic collapse-crisis occurred due to European speculation and unprofitable railway lines.
Consequences:
- Little influence on the country’s steel industry.
- Increase in jobs.
B) Unification of the monetary system: creation of the peseta in 1869.
C) Financial management system.
Agriculture was the main economic activity but had problems and delays due to:
- Unequal distribution of property.
- Low productivity.
- Low diffusion of new techniques.
Thus, until the 20th century, manpower was not released for industry.
4 Regions:
- North: Traditional agriculture (corn, potatoes) and livestock. Smallholdings.
- Mediterranean: Specialization in wine and gardening engaged in export. Intensive irrigated crops.
- Andalusia: Olive cultivation for oil and soap industry. Labor exploitation.
- Interior Spain: Extensive agriculture of cereals and legumes. Milling industry.
Industry suffered from low demand for industrial products due to the low purchasing power of a very poor population, since very little mechanized agriculture also helped to increase this demand. Companies were small in size and technically backward.
Main Industries:
- Cotton Industry: Development of factories. National market monopoly. Problem: Low competitiveness in Europe.
- Steel Industry:
- 1st focus in Malaga: failure due to charcoal production costs.
- Asturias: Main problems were little coal and little demand.
- Industry Linked to Agriculture: Valencia – Developing export agriculture. The need for capital goods (machinery) led to industrial development.
The Start of the Labor Movement
In Europe, the first form of worker protest was Luddism, a form of protest that saw the machine as responsible for the problems of the workers and aimed for its destruction. In 1836, the burning of the Bonaplata factory in Barcelona occurred. This first Luddite manifestation came amid the Regency of Maria Christina – Events of La Granja, the Disentailment of Mendizabal, and the first burnings of convents. During the reign of Isabella II, the labor movement continued to develop, finding an ally in the Chartist movement during the Progressive Biennium, which requested recognition of the right of association. In addition, in 1855, a major general strike occurred in Barcelona.
The overthrow of Isabella II and the beginning of the revolutionary events of the Sexenio Democrático were a result of a process of social mobilization to which many worker groups joined. In this situation, new organizations and ideas, such as the International Workingmen’s Association (IWA), Anarchism, and Marxism, arrived from abroad. Workers were evident for the first time in the history of Spain with their own positions, independent of the Republicans, and revolutionary, as posed by Section Capitalism.
The Spanish Section of the IWA was founded in 1869. Most of its leaders declared themselves anarchists. Besides this anarchist group, a small group was established within the IWA that eventually broke with the organization and took the name of “New Madrid Federation.” (This group would be the germ of the Socialist Party a few years later). The events of the Paris Commune led to a growth of fear of the propertied classes against the IWA. The International was dissolved in early 1874, after the coup that led to the dictatorship of Serrano.
For the history of Spain, this is the first independent appearance of the working class. In addition, the First International is important for the rise of anarchism in Spain, a revolutionary movement that had a mass character in our country until the Civil War. Finally, the First International also marked the split in the Spanish labor movement between anarchists and socialists.
Reign of Alfonso XII: The Canovas System and the Constitution of 1876
1. Definition:
The democratic presidential term ended with the Restoration of the Bourbons. During the reign of Alfonso XII (1875-1885), a political system called the Canovas system was put in place, with the politician Antonio Canovas as the primary figure and inspiration. Canovas aimed to solve the problems through a set of ideas in the Constitution of 1876, but mainly through standards: bipartisanship, peaceful alternation in power, electoral distortion, controlling the population through caciquismo, and a head of state who took part.
2. Causes:
The objectives of this new rule were to end instability and radicalism. To achieve this peace, they copied the English model of government: two parties that take turns in power peacefully. For this, they needed a king who was not neutral for either party.
3. Development:
Alfonso XII was exiled to England during the six years and published the Manifesto of Sandhurst in 1874, where he presented himself as a candidate to return as the King of Spain, as a liberal and modern monarch. Later that year, General MartÃnez Campos staged a coup for the return of Alfonso XII. Alfonso XII chose Canovas as his first minister, who eliminated the Serrano government and convened elections to parliament. This new government took some measures, such as the minister decreeing the compulsory building of teachers to swear allegiance to the Catholic religion. Many did not accept this measure, and some of them founded a private institute called the Free Institution of Education.
But the most important step was the creation of a new constitution in 1876, whose key aspects were:
- The monarchy was the essential piece of the political system. It could summon, suspend, and close the Cortes, appoint the head of government, and had extended legislative power.
- Congress was elected by census suffrage, as was part of the Senate, while the other part was chosen by the King.
- It declared shared sovereignty between the Cortes and the King. It was a constitution that lasted a long time.
The political system was based on the existence of two parties:
- The Conservative Party, led by Antonio Canovas until his assassination in 1897. It was a liberal party but with quite restricted rights (census suffrage).
- The Liberal Party, led by Sagasta. It consisted of some officials and middle classes. They sought a more open political system (universal male suffrage).
The parties’ shift was achieved through bipartisanship, which required that the three parties agree. This was necessary for population control, exercised by the cacique. Caciquismo consisted of blackmailing people to get the election results that were desired. The figure of the cacique was an intermediary between the state and the community.
4. Consequences:
The King died soon (1885), and his death raised a delicate situation. Alfonso XII had only daughters, and his wife was pregnant at the time of his death. Canovas and Sagasta continued with the shift of parties and signed the Pact of El Pardo (1885), in which the Conservatives gave power to the Liberals, who carried out a series of reforms such as:
- The Commercial Code (1885)
- The Civil Code (1889)
- The Law of Juries (1887)
- The Associations Act (1887)
- The Law of Universal Male Suffrage (1890)
Sagasta and Canovas agreed to support Queen Maria Christina as regent, with the hope that a son would be born, who would be named heir. The future Alfonso XIII would be born.
The political system had apparent stability. This stability was achieved at the expense of falsifying the election results and not integrating any new social forces that might arise, which meant that labor, Republicans, and Socialists were forced to go into opposition.
This system also favored the more conservative sectors, namely the financial and landowning oligarchy (owners, bank capital, army, and church), resulting in significant social polarization, that is, an extreme division between the wealthy and the large poor majority.